351 ] GRADING AND JUDGING BUTTER Y2 j 



to New York City, and was famous for producing good 

 butter. Butter from this county could command prices 

 higher than butter from other localities, and it was a trick 

 of the trade to send butter from the outside into Orange 

 County to have it christened and sold as butter from this 

 locality. 1 



Butter shipped from these two counties was doubtless 

 fairly uniform in quality, and as a basis for classifying 

 butter, these localities, and probably others, served a useful 

 purpose in the trade. Of course the classification was crude 

 and quite unfair to other sections of the country that had 

 learned to make good butter ; for the selling of the product 

 was in some degree dependent upon the reputation of the 

 locality, a kind of good-will that only a few localities pos- 

 sessed. 



During the 4o's and 50's there were economic forces at 

 work that made the growing of wheat and the raising of 

 sheep in the eastern states less profitable than dairying. In 

 a general way this was due to the rapid western expansion 

 and the growth of cities and manufacturing towns through- 

 out the New England and Middle Atlantic states. These 

 forces had much to do with the decline of the wool-grow- 

 ing industry in Vermont and of the growing of wheat in 

 New York; and caused at the same time an increased de- 

 pendence upon dairy products throughout these states, as 

 well as throughout other eastern rural sections. Under 

 this economic pressure there is little wonder that butter- 

 making throughout the whole state of Vermont was stan- 

 dardized so as to produce a quality, so uniform, that it was 

 recognized in the market as having a distinctive character. 

 Climate probably was a factor in that it favored this sec- 

 tion of the country, and its topography, with its many clear 



1 Ohio Agricultural Report for 1858, pp. 297, 298. 



